


Bolo Punch

by omphale23



Category: Chasing Rainbows
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's learned how to look like he fits, he's learned how to buy belonging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bolo Punch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_antichris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_antichris/gifts).



> This story started out as a prequel for a longer dS/CR crossover and then rapidly turned into something completely different. Many thanks (and some embarrassed handwaving) to [](http://slidellra.livejournal.com/profile)[**slidellra**](http://slidellra.livejournal.com/) and [](http://malnpudl.livejournal.com/profile)[**malnpudl**](http://malnpudl.livejournal.com/) for being willing to tell me the original didn't work for them. I hate being wrong, but they didn't gloat. Well, Mal didn't.

**St. George's, January 1922**

Jake goes to the funeral. He wakes up early, gets his shoes polished and buys a new suit, something black because he doesn't want to stick out. He stands in the back, quiet by the wall and no one asks why he's there. No one sees him watching the procession from the outside. He's learned how to look like he fits, he's learned how to buy belonging.

Chris glances over as he walks to a pew and even he doesn't question it. There are few things that Chris understands better than penance and guilt, and when he nods Jake remembers being shriven.

He owes Sally even if she never knew the whole story. She knew about Paula, knew enough to be afraid of what would happen if Paula changed her mind. Paula she hated for reasons both good and bad.

But she never asked about Jake. And he's confident, as certain as he was that neither of them would win fair maiden, that Chris never explained it. He wanted normal, wanted safety and family and all the things his father gave up. Chris made a choice. And now that safety is in a churchyard and Jake is standing and waiting.

Chris's story on that freezing night years ago wasn't ever meant for Sally. He was sitting in her parlor and telling Jake goodbye. And she didn't know, she never understood what they did or why, and Jake hates feeling guilty or beholden.

 

**Montreal, April 1922**

They don't speak until months later, after there's grass and a marble headstone. Jake gets drunk on a Tuesday night and won't leave, won't quit shouting until the door opens to Chris's furious glare and bitter whispers.

Jake laughs, because what else can he do? They never managed to get away from anything. There's still dirt on their hands, and when he tells Chris to let her go he means, _I'm still here_. Chris calls him a goddamned bastard and they end up in the garden, rain sluicing over their chests. Chris pushes and pulls and shouts at God. Jake takes it.

He fights back, and that's almost enough when the thunder cracks and there's mud smeared in his hair and Chris won't stop screaming. Splits lips and bruised bones, _I hate you_ and _I need you_.

They end up broken and bloodied and tumbled together on the lawn. They've probably scared the neighbors again. He can't tell if Chris is crying or laughing. Hell, Jake can't even tell if _he's_ crying or laughing. He only hopes they don't get arrested.

The first time they did this it was sunny and another country altogether. The first time Billy was dead and Jake was the one who needed violence. He's returning a favor.

If anyone asks, Chris never came within a mile of hitting him.

Things get easier. They fail to cut much of a swath through anything at all but that's not the point. The point is the two of them, finally talking about what might happen without the blur of booze and girls and blood.

On the nights that Chris talks about Sally, doesn't mention Paula's name, he misses that blur. The point isn't what they say or what they don't. Jake's never been good with words, and the best he can do is be honest. It has to be enough.

 

**France, October 1922**

He comes back from Florida in a cardboard box. Chicago Benny, loudmouth and blowhard and braver than he ever admitted. He was one of them. Takes all kinds.

They sit at the bar the night before and tell stories. Stories of Benny, plowing his way through everything, talking himself out of jail and beatings and dark alleys. Spinning yarns about Chicago mobsters and Emma Goldman. A voice on the radio, because if there was one thing worth remembering about Benny it was his mouth. Bedtime stories for Gabby, for the child she used to be.

At least he's already got a decent suit to wear.

"Well, let's do it." _So long, Benny, we miss you_. Chris reads poetry. Benny would've laughed his ass off at the whole thing. He's laughing somewhere, watching them with a cigar in his mouth and a cocky smile on his face. A conman all along, a fake with a heart of gold. A hero.

Jake's hands don't shake as he holds out the jar. With Gabby between them he can't see if Chris's are steady but he knows they are. He's felt those hands on him, years of fists. _Caresses_. They never shake.

Gabby talks about words and Jake's sure she understands. That Benny always meant to win and never once lost. That for him money and love were the same thing. That a year is as good as a lifetime in this place.

They remind themselves of the bad parts, the good parts, the way you couldn't tell the difference. Chris laughs, toasts Benny. Says, "You're such an ass, Kincaid," and it sounds like _I love you_.

They're sitting there, glasses of beer on the table, happy in a nameless town that meant nothing but despair. Happy even though the reason for the visit is bitter. Jake isn't thinking about the future because all he can taste is the past. Mud and pigeons and copper-bright.

Gabby's cried herself to sleep upstairs. She hasn't said whether she's coming back with them; she might stay, close to Benny with people who speak her language. Or she might not. She's an adult, finally, and he lets her make her own decision. She gets to choose where she calls home. Like he did.

It'd be nice if Benny figured it out, figured out Chris and Jake before he left the last time. Saw them and didn't care. Benny'd never been much of a boxer, but he spoke the lingo and he'd been there, part of it all even before they met. He might have heard what they said with blows and shouts and broken noses. But Benny was always glad to see love, _amor_, and he wasn't picky about where it came from. He'd have winked and bought them a beer.

Jake hasn't decided how to tell Paula. She writes them both, leaves the hard questions out, and he's always been afraid of what she can do. Chris brings her up again.

He answers with challenges, find the Queen, bets it all. He stares at the table and hopes Chris can hear the question. Parliament wouldn't have space for Jake. He'd be a scandal because there's no metaphor for _comrade_.

Their secrets are the same, and Jake raises the ante.

Paula's a smart girl, even if she's a pain in the ass, and what else can an unanswered letter mean? _I see this and you don't, I haven't the words, I can't tell you what I know is true._ She probably realized the score back when they threw themselves at her, crashing into each other and the walls and unspoken desires. Pulling apart and reforming and ending up the way they started, Paula over there and Chris and Jake right here, together.

Someone's singing their song. Chris turns over a card and Jake knows he's won.

 

**New York, December 1922**

Jake goes to watch the play alone. He laughs in the right places and waits at the stage door. It's too much to tell Paula what they've done, what it means. He's a coward after all, was right all along, and there's nothing that says she'll listen to him this time. She never did before. He tries to flip a coin, but his hand shakes and it clatters on the pavement and rolls off into a puddle.

After a fumbling search he lets it go. It's only money.

The show's better, but she's still stealing his lines. That's all Jake can think of blurt out when she catches him and it isn't enough. He says the words anyway and hopes she sees the ending. Foreshadowing. She kisses him goodbye, a sister, an old lover, someone else's childhood sweetheart.

New York is Paula's kind of town and he's going home. Montreal is waiting, and he's thinking of learning French.

Chris is at the hotel when he comes in, sleeping on the sofa, snoring with his head thrown back. Jake shoves him upright and drags him to bed. Chris asks how it went, how she took it, and Jake mutters, "Go back to sleep." He lays awake for a long time, trying to remember when it was three of them and they were going places. He's never sure who threw the first punch. It might have been him.

Chris will always be a stubborn jackass, and in the morning Jake wakes with his shoulders pinned to the mattress, Chris's hair wild and a grin on his face. "How did it go?" _Are you here?_

And Jake laughs at them both, nods his head, ends up on top.


End file.
